Jazz and Faust

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By Ivan Sulic

Jazz and Faust is an adventure game. Clearly I lie, and have consequently assured myself a comfy seat in hell (see you there Tal).

"Quit your fibbing, Ivan" I hear so many of you clamor and continue, "They don't make adventure games anymore." My sweet, remarkably foolish boys and girls, "they" most certainly do make adventure titles. In fact, games of these sorts, specifically those from DreamCatcher, though now sure to come from its Adventure Company offshoot, have been figuratively soaking the market of late. Granted, there are not nearly enough of them to topple the firmly entrenched FPS and RTS genres, but the point-and-click game is alive, well, and anything but over.

The latest proof of this assertion? 1C's Jazz and Faust, a game that takes hints from both Alone in the Dark and Resident Evil before it and melds them with familiarly cartoonish characters, pre-rendered backdrops, conventional PC gameplay, and a type of shadowing that can be cast on any and all things.

Now, I won't bore you with a historical recount of PC gaming and how it eventually evolved into the point and click adventure, because honestly, that would just be inane. Besides, I like to waste space in other ways. So... In Jazz and Faust you point and you click. Never the most complex of play styles, the genre has had to find interest and appeal in other areas, namely those of story and puzzle.

As either one of the two male protagonists, Jazz or Faust (a decision made prior to the onset of the game), prospective players will venture through a medieval time period. The crux of the title is that although Jazz and Faust are entirely dissimilar personas, their paths will cross and their fates will be intertwined. Though the pre-rendered sceneries remain largely the same between characters, they will be perceived, presented, and interacted with in different manners, ending in what promises to be an adventure that grants players different outlooks on the same situations. This ideology appears to be very meticulously thought out. As an example, any object that can be inspected in the game (adventure titles have many of these perfunctory interactions) will convey different text depending on which character used. Jazz will look at an old cannon and say, "Nice cannon," while Faust will look at the same cannon and say, "I'd like some Cheetos to feed to a duck." I'm not one for exact quotes, so I suppose they could theoretically say something else, but the point stands.

One early problem that stuck me with this beta build is that the story hasn't been entirely implemented or translated. Russian developers and placeholder interactions lend to a cryptic, if not entirely confusing play. Make no mistake, this is all still clearly the result of a title that's heavy in development. Forgive me then if I fail to grasp the overall arcing storyline.

Jazz begins in jail for smuggling gin. I know your plight so well. This boy seems like a townie: someone who knows the people, the place. Faust, on the other hand, is a noble captain currently enlisted to ferry a stranger about. He may be new, but has a cool hat working in his favor. That's pretty much all I got at present. See, the introductory cutscenes are in Russian, and, despite what my name might have lead you to believe, I'm not one who's big on the language of the cigarette and vodka fueled motherland, but as you can see, I am really good about throwing out rash generalizations... Dan gleefully fondles the testicles of boy cows, therefore all San Diegans gleefully fondle bovine nards. I could tell from Jazz's CG intro that some dude was pleading with another dude. From there I strutted my staggering mental capacities and deduced that we would be made privy to a story of murder and decapitation.

It was hard to learn what was going on from there, because talking to a lot of people resulted in me not knowing what the heck was going on. Don't fret; it's just the beta monster. Already some of the puzzle elements are becoming clear. The 50 some characters that populate the world don't seem to be the type that will drag a dialog on into a tedious oblivion with branching conversational choices. No, these NPCs get straight to the point: "Do I look like a man who is able to pee in my pants?" Yeah, it'll probably change, but it's still funny. My only hope is that the final will use the word "trifle" far less than it does.

Fans of the genre, rest at ease. Jazz and Faust seems to be the quintessential point and click. You scroll about the screen, inspect and grab many things, and then attempt to use them with other characters and objects in other screens.

3D models on a 2D backdrop convey all this feverish action. Only here shadows emanate and conform to the environment. The game also cycles from day to night, so pre-rendered backdrops have two configurations going for them, lending to a greater degree of believability and aesthetic polish. The environments also aren't entirely static, some signs will sway, fountains will flow, ships may even list. I don't think the game will be able to compete with the luscious graphics of the Gamecube's Resident Evil remake, but they should be ample enough to appease the seemingly unquenchable thirsts of the avid adventurer.

Inventory and action are handled very simply. What the accompanying official write-up describes in seven sentences, I shall shorten to one... Click to move, double-click to run, and right click to bring up the inventory. Simple, quick, intuitive, traditional.

While the beta delivered to us was also unfortunately limited to a small coastal town -- the beginning of the game -- we do know for certain that the later areas will include representations of many architectures, cultures, and places (those things that harbor architecture and culture). You got your Persia, your cemetery, and your Persian cemetery. Yes, there are more (a total of 86 screens, in fact), but really, is anything else needed? If there's one thing I've learned from life it's that Persian cemeteries can provide countless hours of fun.

Expect the game by the end of Q2 2002. It may seem like a bit of a wait for the impatient, but in nautical terms, the few scant months between now and then are perceived as mere days in the grand scheme of things (because you're too busy starving, fending off advances from shipmates, and getting gangrene to care about trivial things like the passage of time).

Jazz and Faust already looks to provide more classic and traditional gameplay to the point and click adventure genre so many of us wrongly believe to be dead or in hibernation. But, only a copy for review will reveal how this one will ultimately pan out, good or bad. Here's hoping for the best, because really, "Do I look like a man who is able to pee in my pants?"